A specter is haunting Egypt: the specter of social apartheid. We thought that the revolution had swept away the old barriers between the Egyptian social classes, but my experience in Ezbet Al-Hagana led me to question this assumption.
In order to examine the validity of such an assumption, one must have an understanding of what social apartheid constitutes. For many, the term describes the geographical segregation of a minority in remote areas. In other words “out of sight, out of mind.” That, however, is not the case in Egypt. The lower layers of the social classes are by no means out of sight and, especially after the revolution, cannot be said to be out of mind. Second, they are by no means a minority and perhaps, that is what makes geographical segregation hard. In fact, in most Egyptian cities, rich neighborhoods are separated merely by a street or, in some cases, a wall.
